Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Vintage Volkswagen

My little car has been at the garage since April 29. As far as restorations go, that's not too long a time. Still...

Last week, the body mechanic asked us to come up, check out the progress, and give him more money*. So, we reserved the PhillyCarShare car and headed up to BucksCo--even though I was terribly itchy, tired, sick, and just altogether miserable-feeling. Anyway, for about the last two weeks, I've been searching for pictures of Ghias in restoration (this is one of my favorite Ghia blogs, though it's no longer active). I wanted to prepare myself for the shock or awe, or both. I knew that what Carl was doing to my car was pretty involved--and most of that will be UNSEEN...

On to the photos... most of these have notes, so click them for even more Ghia goodies.

Against all garage and insurance regulations, I climbed the ladder to see inside the car while it was on the lift. I mean, it's my car! I have to see what they've done... Here, you see they've removed the carpeting from the interior, revealing loads of original color (blue!). The orange-y rust color here is glue residue.

The seats were among the first things to be removed. You can see the passenger side door opening has a couple of 2x4s keeping the peace--this is to prevent the car from folding onto itself like a crunchy, rusty taco.

The passenger side is practically done: the floorpan is in, the rocker panels and quarter panels welded, heater channel in.

In this shot, I walked under my car. Do you understand how excited I was to be under my car? I mean, considering and all... Anyway, you can really see the difference in the original size shot (all up there once you clickr to Flickr). The passenger side is done, the driver's side is scary. I think the note on this shot mentions something about a homemade patch...

The larger hole in this shot (towards the top of the picture) is under the pedals on the driver's side. I'm pretty sure I was about a winter and a half away from developing Fred Flintstone brakes. The smaller hole in the shot is under the seat. That is daylight (or, worklamp light) shining through. Nice.

Finally, the rear shot of the car on the lift.

I did learn some good things last week--the tires are newer and have very little wear. When the garage monkeys moved the car from the lot into the bay, she started without any fuss--even though she'd been sitting from quite some time. Quite a few BcuksCo people have asked to buy the car while it's been sitting at the garage. And, one last good thing, but it's huge and makes me a little nervous, too--she should be ready within two weeks. So that means soon, you all will have the chance to catch of a glimpse of this as I caravan about:

*Lesson learned these last few months: we definitely can save a shit-ton of money if we put our minds to it. Holy corncakes....